Socialism

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Socialism

• Economic equality for all through the
  distribution of property by the government
• Primarily the result of the negative effects of
  the Industrial Revolutions on proletariat
  (workers)
• Believed capitalism was seriously flawed
• Wealth was concentrated in the hands of the few
• Unemployment and low wages

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Utopian Socialists

• Supported productive capacity of industrialism,
  BUT denounced its management of wealth
• often advocated for the creation of ideal
  communities without the ruthlessness of capitalism

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• Robert Owen saw no incompatibility between a
  humane industrial environment and a good profit
• envisioned communities where people factory and
  farm workers lived together and shared their
  resources
• New Harmony, Indiana fails due to quarrels
  amongst workers

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Robert Owen, the Scottish industrialist and early
socialist, created an ideal industrial community
at New Lanark, Scotland. He believed deeply in
the power of education and saw that the children
of workmen received sound educations. Picture
Desk, Inc./Kobal Collection
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• Count Claude Henri de Saint-Simon
• Wanted a planned society in which the public
  owned capital and industrial equipment
• Wanted the communities wealth managed by experts
  to achieve social harmony
• Charles Fourier advocated the construction of
  phalanxes agrarian communities where people did
  different tasks everyday
• All the skills needed to make a society function
  were represented by its members

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• Louis Blanc believed every person had a right to
  a job
• The state should provide work for the unemployed
  in govt-sponsored workshops
• Workers should get to vote to improve economic
  status
• Experienced short success in France

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Anarchistsrejected both industry and dominance
of govt

• Auguste Blanquicalled for the violent overthrow
  of capitalism
• Pierre-Joseph Proudhonadvocated for mutualism?a
  system of small businesses cooperating in the
  exchange of goods
• No need for govt since business will exchange
  goods based on recognition of labor

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Who was Karl Marx?
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Proletariat vs. Bourgeoisie

• Proletariatthe laboring class of society
• Bourgeoisiethe middle class of society

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Karl Marx and Marxism

• Karl Marx believed class conflict will
  eventually lead to the triumph of the industrial
  proletariat over the bourgeoisie and the
  abolition of private property and social class
  becomes to be known as Marxism
• Friedrich Engels
• published The Condition of the Working Class in
  England presented a devastating picture of
  working conditions in industrial life
• joined with Marx to write Communist Manifesto
  called for more radical change then socialism
  the outright abolition of private property,
  rather than just the redistribution

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Assignment Reading Karl Marx

• Small group with one reader
• When teacher says stop, the reader stops
  reading and everyone in the group writes down one
  thing that he/she remembers from the reading.
• Continue until the reading is finished.
• Share your statements with the group.
• Develop one question about Karl Marx

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Assignment Reading

• Marxs un-utopian forecast
• List and describe Marxs 3 laws
• A friend in Friedrich Engels
• Focus of The Communist Manifesto
• Vision of society based on Marx
• Communismthe state will ______ away
• Communism--the ________haunting Europe
• Message of Marxs Capital

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Facets of Marxism

• Economic View of Historyeconomics shape history
  foremost
• Class Struggle of History between haves and
  have nots
• Capitalist versus proletariat
• Working class will revolt and establish a new
  govt based on a collective, classless society

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• Capitalists take advantage of workers by not
  paying the true value of their labor
• Difference between workers wage and price of
  good is called the surplus value or profits for
  capitalists?create class struggles
• Antagonist material forces produce
  change?economic determinism
• Communism will result from a classless society,
  free of govt, and private property
• from each according to his ability to each
  according to his needs